Hunting Tales
by Slywyn
Summary: Emmelia - the only name she's ever known, the only name she can remember. A vampire, searching for the truth of her forgotten past. Struggling to keep the monster at bay and survive in a world that hates and fears her kind. Caught between opposing forces, one who seems to know the secrets of her past and the other seeking to protect the world and lands she calls home.
1. Chapter 1

She didn't know why Shalion always insisted on dragging her to these backwater dens in the middle of nowhere. Wayrest, of all places to meet for something like this. The feline leaned against the stone wall of the refuge, waiting for the Bosmer to finally make himself known - just like him to tell her to be somewhere at a specific time and she shows up late and he's still not here. She cast her eyes over the various characters standing around, refuges like this always attracted the most colorful folk. It was one reason she really didn't mind meeting in them, she didn't stick out quite so much with her hood drawn low over her eyes like the other ten folk standing around that looked exactly the same.

She heard him before she saw him, the diminutive elf striding up to stand next to her. "Glad you decided to show up, Em."

Emmelia turned her head just enough to the side to peer at him out of the corner of an eye, adjusting her stance just enough to let herself rest a little more loosely while they spoke. "Was here late and you still turned up after me."

He shrugged a shoulder as he glanced to the side, just enough to look up at the bright blue eyes under her hood. "I didn't see you here so I went for a walk around."

"Why am I here." She didn't feel like playing his games today, tit for tat and back and forth - she wanted to know why he'd dragged her away from Cyrodiil. She was making good money in the area, enough that she wouldn't have to worry about things for another good long while, and she'd had to cancel an incoming contract to leave.

The Bosmer shifted on his feet, a sure sign he had something to tell her that he didn't necessarily want to. "I got a contact for a job. They want you to do wetwork, some noble-"

Emmelia pushed herself up off of the wall, flexing her claws against her palms. "We have spoken about this. I am not the Brotherhood- if you want someone dead-"

"Em. Em." He turned toward her holding up his hands. "Just... listen for a second, alright?" He waited until she snorted through her nose and leaned back against the wall before he continued. "They asked for you, specifically. I told them you don't do these jobs anymore, not after the last time-"

"Yes, I so enjoyed paying off the Brotherhood after the last one." She snapped her teeth together, tail curling around her right leg.

He sighed and waited for her to finish before he continued. "They asked for you by name. Either you do it or it doesn't get done."

Emmelia growled low, lips rising just enough to expose the tips of gleaming white fangs behind her hood. "Fine. Who is it?"

He shrugged. "They wouldn't give me details until you agreed. Some noble in Elsweyr, Rimmen I think-"

Her head snapped to the side. "Elsweyr. Where there are currently dragons." She lowered herself until she could stare him in the eyes, a faint glimmer of red crossing her own. "Have you forgotten that fire and I do not mix."

Shalion lifted his hands again. "I didn't come up with this one, Em! I'm just the middleman."

Emmelia's ear flickered under her hood - she thought she'd heard something, but it passed just as quickly. "Go on, then."

He lowered his hands and allowed himself to relax. "They'll give us more details when we get there. I have to accompany you, we meet my contact in Rimmen, you do the job, you get the-" he trailed off as he noticed that Emmelia wasn't paying attention to him anymore. "Em?"

Emmelia spun, her hand whipping out to catch hold of a tail as it disappeared around the stone corner behind her, drawing a feline screech of pain. She lifted the offending tail into the air, drawing the Alfiq attached to it up high enough that she could release her grip. The Khajiit flailed in the air before Emmelia's other hand caught it and slammed it against the stones behind her - she heard something pop. "Who are you with!?", the vampire snarled into the feline's face, eyes glowing red under her hood.

The Alfiq's left front leg hung somewhat loose, either popped out of joint or broken from the slam into the stones as she struggled for breath. Finding herself unable to talk, her eyes and working limbs all gestured toward Shalion, who was currently frantically trying to pry Emmelia's claws from around the feline's neck. "Emmelia! She's one of mine!"

The other inhabitants had begun to pay more attention than Emmelia was comfortable with to their little meeting, and with a snarl, she simply dropped the feline. She landed with a thud and another hiss of pain, limping visibly. "This one was following orders!"

Shalion dropped to his knees and started fussing over the small feline, glancing up toward Emmelia now and again. "Damnit, Em. She was getting information for me." He helped to examine the smaller feline while Emmelia crossed her arms and snarled at anyone who looked - most of them took the hint and went back to their own business. "Did you find out what I wanted, Dahsaji?"

Dahsaji adjusted herself until she was sitting between their feet, leaning somewhat against the stone wall behind. "Yes. Dahsaji saw the book, it is real." She hissed under her breath and lifted her left paw. "She did not expect to be assaulted when she returned!"

Emmelia pursed her lips and leaned back against the wall. "I suppose I should apologize."

"This one agrees!" The smaller feline looked up to Emmelia with clear anger in her eyes. "Trying to help and this is how Khajiit responds, this one's poor leg..." She pushed herself away from the wall and started back out and away from the two of them, shooting a glare back toward Emmelia and Shalion. "She is adding the healer's fee to her payment!" The Alfiq limped back around the corner with a flick of her tail and was gone.

Shalion finally stood and turned his gaze back to Emmelia. "Thanks for that. Just groomed her up and... nevermind." He lifted a hand and ran it slowly through his hair in frustration.

"What book did she find? I did not place you as a scholar." Emmelia tilted her head to the side, her curiosity piqued.

He breathed a heated breath before he responded. "It's supposed to be your payment for the job."

Emmelia scoffed. "A book? What would I want with that?"

"It mentions you." He glanced up at her, looking her in the eyes. "By name. It was found in a family vault. You take out the target, you get the book. It's a couple of hundred years old, Em."

She stood up a little straighter at that, uncrossing her arms. "What kind of book?"

"Wouldn't say." He slowly leaned back against the wall. "But it's coded."

"We have broken codes before."

"In Old Elvish, Em. It's coded and written in Old Elvish." He glanced toward her. "Do you know anyone who speaks or writes Old Elvish?" When she shook her head, he continued. "Me either. Of course, I didn't believe the book was real so maybe it's not actually written in Old Elvish either, but your name is in the book." He pointed to where Dahsaji had gone with a hand. "That's what she meant by 'it's real'. I had her follow them until she could be sure they actually had it with them." He looked off to one side. "They showed me the cover but none of the pages, so I only knew they had a book, but not if it was what they said it was, so I had her check it out..." He trailed off with another sigh.

"I will pay the extra expenses, Shalion."

He snapped his head toward her. "That's not the point!" He shook his head and clenched and unclenched his hands several times. "Nevermind. Try to help you and you break her arm..." He grumbled the last bit as he pushed away from the wall. "Meet me by the ship to Elsweyr. It's the big one, they're shipping more goods there - lots of rebuilding after all the dragon attacks. I got us a cabin."

Emmelia nodded once and stood up away from the wall, dropping her hands to the hilts of the daggers on her belt. "I will meet you there, then." She worked her jaw, trying to think of some other way to apologize for hurting his agent, but eventually turned on her heel to start toward the ship. Emmelia could hear him mutter something about 'vampires' under his breath as she went.

The trip to the ship didn't take all that long, as long as she kept her head down and eyes out of view, most just overlooked her as yet another Khajiit- just the way she liked it. The mid-afternoon sun beat down on her hard, making her feel tired, worn, drawn-out, but she knew she'd be right as rain again as soon as she got under some shade. She knew she had probably pushed her relationship with Shalion to the breaking point - they'd been working together for a few years now, he'd find jobs, she'd do them, he took a cut - but then again he'd never been totally comfortable working with her anyway. She got that often, being undead, but it still managed to bother her.

Emmelia glanced down at her hand, frowning despite herself - even all these years later and she'd never quite managed to keep her temper completely under control. She hadn't even really meant to hurt the little cat, she'd heard claws scraping on stone back and forth behind her and had just acted on instinct; but it really wasn't worth getting upset over. She shook her head and looked out over the docks, men and mer heading every which way. In the city, out of the city, carrying goods back and forth, leading wagons. flowing like the lifeblood of a trading hub, just like they were supposed to.

It wasn't long before she felt a familiar presence at her side. "I had a think, Em."

She managed a smirk, turning her head just enough that she could look down at his feet. "Yeah?"

"After this, the book and everything... We're through."

Her face fell immediately, but she quickly nodded. "I understand."

"I have some contacts, I can put you in touch with somebody." He shifted so that he was facing her, but she didn't lift her head. "This isn't the first time you've hurt someone. And all this..." She saw his hand, it gestured to her in general at the 'this'. "It never sat well with me, you know that."

She turned her head just enough that she could meet his eyes with one of her own. "I know, Shalion. I appreciate you sticking it out this long."

He motioned toward the ship and began to walk toward the waiting gangplank. "One more adventure. It'll be a few days, you'll be alright?"

"Yeah, I can find a sleeper at some point." She knew he was talking about her having to feed on the way - she'd found a beggar this morning, paid with a few coins and a tankard of ale spiked with Cure Disease. It was amazing what the poor would do for a handful of gold coins; she'd starve if it weren't for beggars sometimes.

Shalion just shook his head as he continued toward the ship.


	2. Chapter 2

Emmelia crouched atop the wall she'd climbed up, peering out over the noble's district in Rimmen. They'd met with their contact, gotten the information she'd need to get to work. They knew he was here, but not where, and he often used an assumed name - Emmelia hadn't asked what would make him do such a thing, but she imagined he was some kind of spy or infiltrator. She only knew that he was Imperial and had come to Elsweyr and Rimmen fairly recently.

The facial description she had was what would make this possible. Tall, about six foot, dark brown hair, distinctive scar across the bridge of his nose. Now she just had to set out and find someone who matched the description in this area of Rimmen. Where she'd crouched she'd seen others sitting, so her being here wouldn't be particularly alarming, it seemed the native Khajiit often liked to sit up here and stare at the moons, so she'd fit right in. Her eyes cast over the homes, looking for any one of them in particular that stood out to her, her tail flicking slowly behind herself as her gaze traveled from home to home.

Emmelia's ears twitched under her hood as someone walked by below, and she shrank a fraction back from the edge to get out of view. A guard passing by, doing the rounds, nothing to be particularly worried about, but it was still good to be cautious. She'd thought she'd spend a night or two up here, find someone to observe, see if it was the one, take her time, but she had to admit she was starting to feel that little stirring inside of herself that meant she'd have to feed soon...

She distracted herself by trying to remember what else Shalion had told her after they'd met his contact here in Elsweyr. They'd gone to somewhere called 'The Stitches', a city connected by various rope bridges that hung over the chasms, apparently under new management after a recent gang war or something of the sort. It had seemed peaceful enough, at least. He'd wanted her to try to capture their man, see if they couldn't bring him in and figure out why his contact wanted him, but his contact had been pretty adamant that he needed to die. Emmelia had been given instructions that it should look like a burglary gone bad - apparently that sort of thing wasn't particularly uncommon in Elsweyr, even in the 'nicer' towns like Rimmen.

Emmelia pursed her lips and slithered down from her post atop the wall, using her claws to slow her descent for a moment right before she landed, leather-soled boots giving out only the faintest of quiet creaks. She wondered if she should put her feet to use more than her eyes, she imagined there might be a beggar or two here or there she could toss a coin to in exchange for some information, since scanning the buildings hadn't turned up anything right away.

As she wandered her way through the streets, she often slipped into the shadows to avoid a passing guard. Her own steps near-silent, it made it fairly easy to know when one was on the way and when to duck down an alley to keep out of sight. Rimmen wasn't particularly well-lit - Khajiit didn't need it, what with their night vision, and the other races just seemed to make do as best as they could. It was in one such alley when her ear twisted under her hood as she heard something behind her, and a turn revealed an older-looking Khajiit huddled up in the remains of an old crate, taking shelter from the evening.

Emmelia crouched down near the crate and peered inside, the feline within looking particularly old indeed. His mane was tangled and knotted, and he shook even as she watched. She'd seen things like it before, advanced Skooma addiction. There were even empty bottles here or there in his crate. She frowned as she peered down at him beneath her hood, then slowly settled down to the ground outside of his crate. She was starting to get the sense that he wasn't long for this life, he looked so weak. "My friend, good evening."

It took him some time to realize she was even there, his gaze peering up at her own. From this angle, he couldn't not see her glowing eyes, but the thought of them being strange didn't even seem to register with him. "Who is there?" His voice was weak and rasped deeply as he spoke, evidence of a lifetime of abuse.

She leaned herself over and moved some of the hair away from his eyes where he'd been trying to sleep, which helped her check to see if he could still see. Though sunken, his eyes were still bright, slightly watery - he could likely still see just fine. "I am looking for someone. I could pay you if you tell me what I need to know."

The old Khajiit considered her for some time, then looked out over the alley around them to make sure they were alone before he spoke again. "What do you want?"

"I am looking for someone." Emmelia used her claws to tease at some of the mats in the Khajiit's fur. "An Imperial. Dark hair. A scar across his nose. Lives in one of these big houses." She gestures with a hand around them. "Arrived somewhat recently."

The Khajiit thought for some time, so long in fact that Emmelia thought he might have fallen asleep. "This one knows the one you speak of."

Emmelia tilted her head to the side curiously. "You do? Which house is his?"

"That one." He pointed off down the alleyway she'd come down to find him, toward a house with a large wall around the grounds - common, but not every building around here had one. "They throw away very little food. This one was kicked when rummaging through their garbage. He remembers his face, yes." He slowly lay back into his crate. "This one hopes that you hurt him."

She looked down at the Khajiit, he almost looked like he'd forget she was ever there if she just left now, but she had told him she'd pay. She reached for her coinpurse, reaching down into her breastplate where she kept it - very safe from thieves there - when his hand reached out for her wrist.

"No. Do not." He looked back up at her, his eyes seemingly just a little brighter as he met her gaze again. "This one knows what you are." When Emmelia started to speak, he shook his head. "He can see the hunger in her eyes. How it tears at her, as it does to him."

She pursed her lips and settled the coinpurse back into her lap. "What do you want then? I said I would pay."

He closed his eyes and turned his head to the side. "This one is tired. He would like to walk with the moons."

Emmelia stared for several moments after that. "Are you asking me..." She clenched her jaw shut, working the muscles in her cheeks over and over again as she considered. "If... that is what you want." She had never been asked to do something like this before - she'd taken lives, certainly, but she'd never been -asked- by someone like this before.

"He sees her hunger. He knows what it is like." He shifted until he was facing away from her, curled up in his crate - so thin that his entire body fit neatly inside of it with his legs pulled up. "This one has done so little for others for so long... He knows he has little time left. Maybe she can allow him to do some last act." His voice trailed off quietly as he shuddered. "She was kind to him."

It almost unsettled her to the point that she was tempted to leave him coins and walk away. He hardly seemed in his right mind - and yet, she didn't know why this bothered her so much. She'd killed, murdered, fed from others thousands of times over the years... What is it about one Khajiit offering her a meal that unsettled her so thoroughly? The promise of blood had thoroughly stirred the urges inside of herself, the cat was figuratively out of the bag and wouldn't be put back in without a feeding. It was him or someone else, and he was right... he didn't have long left.

She considered for a few more moments before her hunger pushed her to act and she leaned forward, sweeping her hood back and off of her head, her braids coming fully into the night, small golden rings at the base of each tinkling quietly against each other now that they were free to move. She parted her lips, exposing her fangs to the air as she leaned over him, one arm slipping down under his shoulders, the other wrapping around his front.

He jerked slightly in her grip as she pulled him closer - she could sense the fear starting to rise off of him - but to his credit, he went still once again as she picked him up and brought his neck to her maw.

Her fangs were slightly longer than the average Khajiit's, their tip wickedly, supernaturally sharp, able to pierce even thick leather if necessary with the help of her augmented strength. She tried to be as gentle as she could - it was always going to hurt, there was nothing she could do about it, her teeth were big - and she wrapped her lips around his neck. She was glad her sense of taste was dulled, she knew it had likely been some time since he'd seen a proper bath, and he wouldn't have tasted very good at all until...

He hissed out a pained breath as her fangs pierced the skin of his neck, parting the thin, dirty fur easily. His hands curled, claws pressed against his own palms, legs pulled more tightly up against himself, but he didn't struggle or cry out. The night remained as silent as ever.

Emmelia closed her eyes as she drank, feeling the rich warmth run slowly back over her tongue, the Khajiit's heart doing the work once her fangs had pierced skin. She could feel his heartbeat racing as she fed upon him, but there wasn't much strength to it. He was old, he was clearly sick... She swallowed heavily, thin rivulets of red peeking out of the corners of her lips, running down through the fur along her muzzle and chin. Emmelia pulled him closer, tighter against herself, a quiet little wet growl rising from her throat as she clutched him tighter.

He hardly moved before he was too far gone to do so even if he tried. Her claws clutched him tight against herself, holding him in place, until his heartbeat slowed, failing and faltering as there was soon too little blood for it to even function... and then it simply stopped. Emmelia remained as she was, holding him against herself until there was nothing left to give. She slowly lowered him down into his crate once the body had gone still, adjusting him until he'd be that little bit more 'comfortable'. She knew she couldn't bring him anywhere and she'd have to disguise what happened. A hand wiped across both sides of her muzzle helped hide the blood, but she'd need to find water to completely clean herself off.

She reached to her belt and pulled from her daggers free from the sheath, bringing it down around his neck. Her teeth left twin slits, and she used that as the starting point. Emmelia drew the tip of her blade across them, then across his neck, making it look like his throat was cut - it would deter a cursory examination, all that someone like him was likely to get. She took the Skooma bottles within his crate and crushed one on the ground under her hand, then scattered a few more across the alleyway, 'disturbing' the scene enough to make it look like he could have been robbed for someone else's fix.

Emmelia hesitated a moment, intending to push herself to her feet, but something told her to wait a moment longer. A thought came to mind and she placed a hand softly upon the Khajiit's shoulder, recalling a funeral prayer she'd heard years ago the last time she'd been in Elsweyr. "May bright moons guide your path, my friend."

She pushed herself up to her feet and checked the entry of the alleyway, then stalked off into the deepening night - she had business with an Imperial.


	3. Chapter 3

Emmelia arrived at the wall to the compound in short order - the only obstacle had been the open road and the possibility of a guard, but simply waiting for them to pass had been easy enough. She hopped up to the edge of the wall and hung with her claws grasping the stones, bright eyes peering over the edge to see what might be waiting for her beyond. The inner yard revealed little about the occupant of the house, the front area was almost like a little garden, plants here and there with a tree near a little pond. A glance to the back revealed little more than a brown dirt area being encroached upon by grass and weeds, as well as a small gate in the back wall where the garbage-throwing and kicking had likely occurred.

Her scan of the yard revealed something else, she saw at least three men standing guard; one near the front door, one watching the front and one watching the back, but the latter two would switch every few minutes as she hung there. She wasn't surprised to see her target under guard, it wasn't the first time and wouldn't be the last, that much she was certain of, but it did tell her a little bit more about him. Whoever he really was, he was important enough to guard and concerned enough for his safety to have guards in the first place. All these little things adding up to make her wonder who he really was. But the presence of the guards and their schedule did complicate things slightly, she wouldn't be able to simply remove them one by one as they would notice each other's absence - she'd have to remove all three at the same time.

Emmelia dropped from her grip on the wall and started heading off toward the other side of the house that made up the center of the yard. She hadn't seen any good window angles on the side she was on, and she didn't want to make a move until she'd confirmed that who she was looking for was inside the small home. She also knew she couldn't kill the guards - she'd have to knock them out or otherwise occupy them, as killing all three of them would look far too suspicious for a simple 'burglary gone wrong'. She'd have to come up with some way to distract them or simply remove them from the home.

A quick glance back and forth once she'd reached the other side of the house to make sure that there wasn't anyone around to see what she was doing, and she hopped up and gripped the edge of the wall again, pulling herself up to get a good look. Her ears twitched under her hood as one of the guards walked by, switching their positions. That helped confirm what she'd thought, the front guard always went to the back this way and the back guard went to the front on the other side, rotating instead of simply walking back and forth. Maybe that would give her a window at some point.

The windows on this side of the house were far more illuminating than they'd been on the other side as well. Not only because they were actually illuminated, but also because she could clearly see her target sitting at a small table on the other side of one of them, writing a report or message of some kind judging by the structure of it. She couldn't read the document itself, but it didn't look like a list or an inventory. She was starting to formulate a little plot to get rid of the guards, but she'd have to check one more thing first before she put it into action.

Emmelia dropped herself back down to the ground and crept along to the back gate, peering up at the handle to see if there was a lock in place. There was, so she reached down to one of the small pouches at her side and pulled free her lockpicking kit - she didn't imagine a gate like this would have anything particularly complex or difficult on it. She didn't know enough about the guards to know what their reaction would be, she'd just have to hope - none of them were Khajiit or Argonian, they lacked tails, one might be an Orc judging by the glance she got at his face, but the other two she had no idea. None of them seemed to be casters, though, they'd carried weapons instead of a stave or staff. That did make things slightly more simple.

Lockpicks inserted into the lock, she leaned in close and trained her ear for the quiet sounds coming from within. Four pins, nothing special on the construction side that she could tell. A simple, easy lock, probably installed when the little compound was built and never changed. Trained fingers got the lock open in just a few seconds once she actually started to try and she unlocked it with a quiet but still satisfying 'click'. She hopped up onto the wall and peered over again, making sure nobody had heard what she was doing, but the gate was far enough away from the guard that the noises of the night and the distance had rendered her activities silent.

Emmelia dropped to the ground one more time then, making sure that the guard was glancing away, she carefully pushed the gate open, letting it swing into the yard. She didn't follow through, then scurried away off to the corner of the fence, picking up a rather large stone out of the side of the alley as she went. She crouched at the edge and waited, soon enough she heard a quiet commotion from within the compound, voices conferring on what to do and what happened. They weren't stupid, they kept themselves quiet, and there were only three voices for a moment. Emmelia waited until she heard three voices become two, then she heard the second voice order the first to check the alleyway - just what she wanted.

She leaned her back against the corner of the fence and peered around the edge of it as the guard - the one she'd thought might be an orc - came to investigate. She waited just until he stepped away from the door, adjusted her aim and guess to account for his thick orc skull, then let fly with her rock. It slammed into him hard enough to make her wonder whether or not he died, but it achieved the desired effect - not only did he go down like a sack of bricks, he caused a fair amount of noise when he did. She heard two voices cry out from inside the compound, and that's when she made her move.

Emmelia hurried along the wall toward the front of the house, then about halfway down she hopped up to peer over the edge - one guard was standing near the door and the other was in the alleyway, judging by where the voices were coming from. She slipped over the wall and dropped down into the compound itself, then hurried around to the front of the house. She'd spotted the occupant moving toward the back, probably to watch or check on the other two guards, which she imagined gave her plenty of time to do what she wanted. The front door was unlocked, just like she'd thought - why lock the guards out when the yard was secure after all - and she slipped inside. Voices from the back side of the house told her that they were still preoccupied with her diversion, it was time to move on to part two.

She couldn't imagine that the guard she'd hit with the rock would be back in action any time soon, she'd thrown it pretty hard and even if he woke up he probably wouldn't be in any shape to do any guarding for a while. She wanted to see how they'd react before she really moved into part two - would they sweep the house, call in more guards, retreat into the house itself, some combination of those? Emmelia quickly climbed the stairs up onto the second floor, slipped into a room off of the small hallway here - some kind of storage space it looked like - then climbed up into the rafters in a dark corner and pulled her tail up behind her.

More or less as she'd expected, it didn't seem like they were going to call in the actual guards. They didn't want to alert the city and apparently there was something here to hide. As she hid in her little corner she could hear them talking below; they weren't exactly quiet about their discussion. The guard she'd hit wasn't dead, but he wasn't in good shape either. She continued eavesdropping, learning a few more interesting little tidbits. The man they were guarding was Felix - or that's what they were calling him anyway, and apparently there was some 'thing' in the house that they didn't want the guards to find. What it was, Emmelia had no idea, and they weren't really discussing it.

They seemed to think the guard being hit was some kind of random attack, apparently, there were still Khajiit in the city that weren't happy with 'foreigners' in Rimmen - Emmelia hadn't known this, but it definitely worked in her favor. And what was important was that they apparently didn't suspect that anyone was inside the house. It took perhaps the better part of an hour, but eventually, the two remaining guards decided to go back to their patrol and to leave the Orc inside with Felix. This suited her just fine.

When it seemed like things had settled down a bit, Emmelia lowered herself down out of her hiding spot and headed for what she assumed was the bedroom. She needed to make off with a few valuables to help reinforce the 'burglary gone wrong' idea, and she imagined the bedroom was where she might find them. The bedroom itself proved to be nothing special, a bed that wasn't made, a writing desk with an unlit candle, a privy pot in the corner that really needed to be cleaned out - once again she was glad for her dulled senses. A quick check of the dresser got her what she was looking for, a small jewelry box hidden in the lower drawer under a pair of underclothes. She just took the whole thing and dumped it into a pouch on her belt, save for a silver ring and pendant that she carefully fished out of the lot and tossed off to one side. Just having the silver near her made her tail twitch and she didn't want it on her person, and she was very careful not to touch it as she tossed the ring under the bed and the pendant off into a corner.

Emmelia tied the drawstring to her little pouch and made sure it was as tight as she could get it - she didn't want the bag jingling and jangling all around when she was moving, after all. Then she needed to get her man upstairs. While she wanted to get him somewhere on her own and question him for a while, she knew it just wasn't feasible, and she was likely to just have to do away with him and hope she could learn more about why she'd been set on this particular task later - the idea that they had just 'found' a book that mentioned her and then needed this particular Imperial dead seemed too convenient to be chance.

She peered around the room until she found something that would work, a boot that had been sitting next to the footlocker at the end of the bed with its twin. She carefully positioned herself behind the door with the boot, then tossed it out into the middle of the floor where it landed with a 'thud'. She was hoping her target would come to investigate alone, but she pulled her daggers just in case he went and got one of, or both of, the guards first.

It didn't take long for her to get a reaction, she heard stairs creak as someone came walking up them and she readied herself - it sounded like just one pair of feet. As her man, this Felix, walked into the room and picked up the boot, Emmelia stepped behind him - as soon as he stood up, holding it and wondering how it had gotten there, she wrapped her hand around his mouth from behind to silence him and drew her dagger across his throat. "This is just not your night, my friend", she hissed against his ear.

He struggled, she could hear him trying to shout for the guards but her hand over his mouth ensured that he was very difficult to hear, and her dagger against his throat meant he didn't try to move too far. She wasn't going to give him the chance to try anything, though, she'd learned not to play with her 'food'. Her dagger pulled away from his throat and she felt him relax, likely thinking that she wanted to capture him instead, but that wasn't to be. She spun the blade in her grip until it was pointed toward him, then drove it down into his gut, pulling it free to stab again and again.

His muffled screams and squirming struggles made it a little harder to try to keep things quiet, and she had to use her grip on his mouth to hold him more firmly as he tried to pull himself away from her. She knew it would be easier to slit his throat instead, but a burglar wouldn't be thinking about something like that if they were caught and willing, they'd just stab until he stopped moving. That result wasn't too far away, either, Emmelia plunged her dagger into him five or six times - she wasn't sure of the exact number with him struggling, but the smell of blood was in the air and he was already weakening. She lowered him to the ground and plunged her blade in one last time, making sure to strike the heart and ensure his death.

As he lay dead on the ground, Emmelia quickly began to work on the scene of the crime, scattering the bed sheets, yanking the other drawers of the dresser open, she even took a large cabinet and toppled it across the door, making it look like there'd been a struggle. She wiped her blade clean on his shirt as she heard the other two guards push open the doors - the cabinet, armoire, whatever it was she wasn't sure, had made a lot of noise - before she leaped up into the rafters once again.

The men rushed into the room and, not immediately spotting the culprit, cried alarms and headed back down again to try to catch her as she 'escaped'. Guards were so often predictable, falling back on training and instinct - she wasn't here, so of course, she must already be making good her escape. As soon as the two shouting voices faded from the house, Emmelia lept down from the rafters and headed down the stairs. She picked up the message he'd been writing off of the table and rolled it up, then pushed it down inside of her chestpiece.

The guards had left the front door open in their haste, so Emmelia simply walked through, hopped over the wall, then disappeared into the night. She needed to go find Shalion so he could tell his contacts that the deed was done... maybe they'd actually hand over the book, and she wanted to read this message to see if it clued her in onto who the Imperial had been.


	4. Chapter 4

Emmelia waited in the darker parts of Rimmen, her arms crossed over her chest, for Shalion to finally join her and wrap up their last job together. Her task accomplished, the message still hidden away under her chestpiece, she just wanted the book so she could vanish as she usually did. She didn't like to stick around somewhere after a job, too easy to get spotted and for something you missed to connect you to what you'd done. If you vanished into the night, the chances were that you'd just be forgotten and the crime would fade into obscurity by the time you next came around.

She pushed herself away from the wall as Shalion approached around the corner, her face cracking into the barest hint of a smile as she saw him. "I was beginning to wonder whether or not you would turn up after all."

Shalion stepped closer and then took his place by her side, shaking his head. "I told you that I'd help you see this one through to the end, didn't I? I've already contacted them, they're on the way."

Emmelia raised a brow as she turned her head to the side, adjusting her hood with one of her hands to help hide her eyes from view. "Down here? I was expecting that would have to go meet them somewhere."

He shook his head again. "Nope, they're coming down here. Didn't want it to be public but didn't want to meet us alone." He glanced to the side at the taller feline. "I suppose they didn't want you getting them all to yourself."

She smirked a fraction at that, a half-hearted shrug of her shoulders her response.

The two of them weren't forced to wait too long before a figure began to approach them, a man in hooded robes that seemed to materialize out of the shadows of their little underground meeting place. He carried a staff in one hand - something that almost immediately put Emmelia on edge, but she just feared magic users on principle - and what she imagined was their book in the other. He also stank, a smell that was both familiar and foreign, something that threatened to call up some forgotten memory and at the same time left Emmelia wondering where she'd smelled that before. Even smelling something from him at all was a bit strange, she almost never caught wind of a person's scents, but this man reeked of something she couldn't place.

Emmelia stood up as straight as she could manage as the man approached, keeping her arms crossed, but she relaxed just enough that she could move quickly if she needed to. Just something about him really put her on edge. She leaned over and nudged Shalion with an elbow - he'd been looking at something else and apparently hadn't noticed their 'guest' just yet. His eyes soon ended up on the figure walking toward them as well, and she could tell by the set of his jaw that something didn't sit right with him either.

The figure stopped before the two of them - he had smelled almost as soon as he'd come into sight, but this close it was genuinely almost overpowering - and offered them a small bow of his head. His voice, when he spoke, was unassuming, coming from a face almost completely obscured in shadow thanks to his hood. Emmelia could see features, her eyes worked extremely well in the dark, but nothing more than that he appeared human and fairly nondescript. "You have done good work for us, Emmelia. We would offer you a place with us, but we know you well enough to know that you would not accept."

She pursed her lips slightly, not particularly comfortable with the idea that whoever this man represented seemed to know how she worked. "I try not to get tied to any one place or group, no."

His lips pulled into something approaching a smile as he extended the hand holding the book out toward her. "Perhaps this will change your mind, eventually. Unfortunately, we have little assistance to offer in the way of translation. We do wish you luck."

Emmelia took the book from him and ran her fingers slowly over the cover of it. She had to admit that she was excited about the prospect of unlocking whatever secrets the book might hold about her past - the leather cover was aged, even cracked in a few places, and dust had settled into the seams and folds. This had been sitting somewhere for quite a while before it was retrieved, and the leather creaked slightly every time she shifted it in her grip. She finally brought her gaze up enough that she could look at him under his own hood, her shrouded eyes staring at the small glimmers she could see of his own. "Thank you."

"Oh no, thank you." He bowed his head toward her and turned, using his staff as a walking stick as he slowly trudged away back into the shadows he'd emerged from.

She waited until he'd well and truly vanished before she looked to her side at the Bosmer who stood next to her. "Guy gives me the creeps."

He looked up toward her, a brow raised especially high at that. "You?" He glanced back the way the man had gone, then slowly shook his head at whatever he was thinking. "Anyway, this is it for us, isn't it?"

Her face set at that, she was hoping maybe she could come up with some excuse to keep him around, or maybe he'd offer to help with the book, but... She extended her free hand toward him. "It has been a pleasure, Shalion. I hope to see you again someday."

He took her hand and gave it a solid few shakes. "No offense or anything Emmelia, but I don't." He released her hand and turned, heading back out toward the entrance and away from their shadowy refuge.

Emmelia drew her lips together as she watched him leave, then turned her gaze down to the leather-bound tome in her hands. She turned it over, looking for any kind of mark or anything that would signify who'd written it, but the tractless leather offered up no secrets to her view. She shifted herself just enough that she could hold the book more into the limited light of her little alcove, then cracked the cover open. She pretty much immediately recognized a small bookmark sticking a fraction of an inch out further than the rest of the pages, toward the back.

She carefully opened the book, making sure she was gentle with the pages, turning them so that she could find the bookmarked section. She didn't recognize the script the book was written in or any of the words - save one. Near the middle of the page, underlined with ink that looked far newer than what the journal had been written in was one word. Her name. Emmelia.

The vampire had retreated to a more well-lit section of the outlaw's den she was calling home while in Rimmen to settle at a table. She had a contact or two here of her own, she'd given them a message to pass along that she was looking for a translator - she'd copied a few phrases of text to include with the message, hopefully, people could recognize the language and come back down along the chain back to her. But she knew she'd probably have to go contact the Guild, put their much larger network to work... But they'd probably expect her to take on a job for them as payment. Favors paying for favors and all that.

She was slowly flipping through the pages of the book before her. It looked to her like it was some kind of journal, certain entries were marked with what looked like dates, the first page had what she supposed was a title or a message with a name. The journal fascinated her for a reason she didn't really understand - she imagined some of it had to be the fact that whoever had written this had known her and the journal was obviously old enough that they must have known her either before her memories began or just afterward. There might be secrets to who she was locked away within these pages. But it wasn't just that either, something about the book and the writing were both familiar. She felt like she'd seen them before, like she recognized the handwriting that graced the pages before her eyes, but she couldn't put face or name to it.

Emmelia reluctantly closed the cover of the journal and reached into her chestpiece, pulling free the message she'd stolen from the Imperial's home. She unfurled the parchment and flattened it out onto her table, leaning over it to help shield it from view a little bit as she pulled the candle on her table closer to provide better light once she did. Her eyes quickly scanned the message before her, her face falling the more she read.

It was almost like a military dispatch, short, to the point, terse. Something she wouldn't really have expected from someone who was an ambassador, but his message proved him to be anything but. Her clawed fingers came up to rest on her chin as her eyes scanned the message, and she forced herself to breathe in just enough that she could exhale a quiet 'fuck'.

She was starting to realize that she probably wasn't supposed to have seen this message, and she was glad that she hadn't read it to mention it when the hooded man had dropped off the book. Apparently, the Imperial - Felix given his signature - had been working with an Order associated with Arkay, necromancer hunters. They'd been tracking a group called the 'Order of the Serpent's Eye', and Emmelia had a pretty good idea of who had probably hired her to take him out. According to this message, he'd been on the trail of one of their necromancers working here in Elsweyr. He'd probably gotten too close for the necromancer's comfort.

Emmelia chewed on her bottom lip as she considered. It seemed like she'd been dragged into the middle of a conflict between a group of necromancers and a group of their hunters - anyone hunting the undead was incredibly bad news for her, but necromancers were almost as bad. More than once one of them had tried to enslave or claim her as their own, usually to their detriment. They tended to be incredibly full of themselves and believed themselves to be far stronger than they actually were, in her experience. It was the ones who didn't brag about their strength that she'd learned to actually keep an eye on.

She slowly rolled the message back up and slipped it back into her chestpiece, she'd have to get rid of it later, probably just burn it - she didn't want anyone to happen across it in her possession and trace one thing to another. The journal she had other plans for, she could store it in the Rimmen bank and keep it safe until she could find someone to translate it for her. It seemed like she'd be calling Rimmen home for the next little while, at least until she could find someone to translate the journal for her.

Emmelia pushed herself up from her table, reached into her pocket and flipped a coin toward the bartender of the Refuge, then tugged on her hood and made sure it was secure before she wandered back up into the light of day.


End file.
